Reciprocity of College Students over Online Social Networks

Abstract

Being a social space, behaviors studied by Social Psychology seem to be present on online social networks. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which social exchange theory is present in university students through online social networks. An exploratory study of quantitative nature, where the research subjects were 135 university students (27 as emitters and 108 as receivers), is presented. The study measured the tendency to reciprocate the signs of interest shown by comments and likes. It was found that almost 73% of those who received attention instances (via comments and likes) then showed mutual interest to their peers. Also, while statistical tests found no significant difference concerning gender, it was found that, in general, women were more likely to respond reciprocally to the attention received. While the study was only exploratory, results show that the classic trend to reciprocate the attentions of others also occurs in social networks online.